Program

Conductor

Petri Sakari

Soloist

Þóra Einarsdóttir

Petri Sakari has been one of the ISO’s chief collaborators for years, and his contribution to the orchestra’s growth and development is invaluable. Petri celebrates his 60th birthday in November 2018, and at about the same time it will have been 30 years since he first assumed the post of Chief Conductor — a serendipitous event, to be sure. In celebration of this double anniversary, Petri will conduct this programme featuring two of the masters of orchestral music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss.

Strauss’ tone poem about Till Eulenspiegel is one of his best-loved works: pure entertainment that sketches out the adventures of the main character in an unforgettable way. In 1948 Strauss finished the Four Last Songs, his last completed work, at well over age 80, surrounded by the ruins of the Second World War. The anguished music has a strongly Romantic tone, with silky-smooth soprano lines that are some of the most beautiful every written. The soloist is Þóra Einarsdóttir, who has long since established herself as one of Iceland’s foremost singers. Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no. 5 is one of the Russian master’s most majestic orchestral works, a riveting and intense rendering of the “fate” theme that ultimately leads to victory.